July 6, 2011

I suspect that if I tried to stand in her shoes, I would probably topple face forward. It could be informative to see a picture of the shoes in the closet of DSK's accuser. Average heel height might be a relevant datapoint.

REVELATIONS about the hotel housekeeper who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault suggest that she embellished claims of abuse to receive asylum, fudged her tax returns, had ties to people with criminal backgrounds, had unexplained deposits in her bank account and changed the account of the encounter she gave investigators. Yet those who would rush to judge her should consider the context.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser is from Guinea, also the home country of Amadou Diallo, the street peddler who was shot to death in the doorway of his Bronx apartment building by four New York City police officers in 1999. ...

Immigrants share tips and hunches about ways to outwit the system, even as immigration judges try to discover the claimants’ latest ruses. But I can say from experience that for every undeserving claimant who receives asylum, several deserving ones are turned down. So few Africans gain access to green cards through legal channels that the United States government grants about 25,000 spots annually to Africans selected at random through the diversity visa lottery.

Just as Mr. Diallo’s death resonated because it made the tribulations of many West African immigrants public, the case of Mr. Strauss-Kahn and his accuser has the aura of a parable. Many Africans feel the International Monetary Fund, which Mr. Strauss-Kahn led, and the World Bank have been more committed to the free flow of money and commodities like bauxite than to the free flow of people and the fulfillment of their aspirations.

Guinean press accounts, and recent conversations I’ve had with Guineans, suggest that they disapprove of the deceptions by Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser. But given the poverty and systemic violence in their country, they understand the circumstances in which such deception could occur — and we should, too.

As the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn seemingly disintegrates, he is enjoying a political renaissance at home, yet I keep asking myself: does a sexual encounter between a powerful and wealthy French politician and a West African hotel cleaning woman from a dollar-a-day background not in itself suggest a gross abuse of power?

What is so wrong with the original plan to hold a trial for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to decide if he committed an act of sexual violence against a hotel housekeeper? ...

“She wants to testify to the world what Mr. Strauss-Kahn did to her, and she is willing to be hammered on cross-examination,” Mr. Thompson said. “You don’t have to come over on the Mayflower to be the victim of a crime.”

As the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn seemingly disintegrates, he is enjoying a political renaissance at home, yet I keep asking myself: does a sexual encounter between a powerful and wealthy French politician and a West African hotel cleaning woman from a dollar-a-day background not in itself suggest a gross abuse of power?

"A MONETARY fund that is more committed to financial issue than to "free movement of people and their aspirations"?"

But aren't DSK and his wife major proponents of open borders? And hey, as Gus Savage said to a black woman who resisted his sexual advances, "what do you have against the black movement?", DSK seems to have been for free bodily movement between the races.

And if he did really rape her, maybe one can say it wasn't rape but 'undocumented entry'. In fact, the notion of 'rape' is reactionary and sexenophobic. Just as we should share all our nations and all wealth, we should share all our bodies. 'Rape' isn't illegal sexual entry but aspiration for sexual movement between peoples. Just as rich nations should keep poor third world people out, hot-looking women should put up barriers against desperate sex-starved men.

"So few Africans gain access to green cards through legal channels that the United States government grants about 25,000 spots annually to Africans selected at random through the diversity visa lottery."

I had no idea Americans were suffering because of a lack of immigrants from Africa!

Gosh, how can we survive without more immigrants from Africa? Are African-Americans unable to fill our national need for people of recent African ancestry?

“You don’t have to come over on the Mayflower to be the victim of a crime.”

Gosh, what planet is this guy living on? For some time now, the rule has been you can't be a victim of a crime IF you're ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Just ask the Duke Lacrosse team.

Today, Jews and blacks, who didn't come over on the Mayflower, are seen as the biggest victims of all time just for being born Jewish or black. All whites are targeted by affirmative action and all blacks may benefit from it. Why? all whites are guilty, period, and all blacks are innocent, period.

The fact the witness is unreliable doesn't tell us whether DSK raped her or just refused to pay for services. However, in this case, an answer suggests itself that doesn't require us to untangle the rights and wrongs of the case. Two foreigners appear to be here in the US committing crimes, one way or another--why not deport them both? This possibly puts a rapist on the streets of Paris, and a fraudster and hooker back to wherever the alleged victim came from. But I don't see that this is our problem, exactly, and we don't have enough evidence to convict DSK at any rate.

""embelleshed", "fudged", "unexplained" deposits? And she's from the same country as someone the police abused 12 years ago?"

They didn't abuse him, they killed him, in an unfortunate accident. He reached for a wallet with his ID in it when undercover NYPD cops told him to freeze, and they thought it was a gun.

The cops who shot Diallo were part of the NYPD's Street Crimes Unit, which dramatically reduced homocides in the city by, basically, stopping and frisking black men for firearms on any . The unit was shut down a few years after the Diallo shooting, but the NYPD replaced it with similar units using different names.*

Shortly afterwords, Bruce Springsteen wrote a tendentious song about it, "41 Shots", and would have his black saxophonist/mascot, the late Clarence Clemons, intone the first line of it.

Speaking of Springsteen, he's also written about the plight of migrant Mexicans and Vietnamese fishermen in the U.S. He's a real open-borders advocate.

*An unspoken irony about liberal NYC is that it is the country's safest large city largely due to very un-liberal, but effective policing methods, such as racially profiling young black males. There was an NY Times article a few years ago about a bright black teen whose parents home schooled him and let him go to museums and other cultural institutions in the city as part of his 'school day'. To keep him from getting stopped by the cops, they made him wear a business suit every day.

First the globalist leftist multiculturalist French snob had to face public ridicule for supposed rape while he was actually just cheating and lying; now the black female muslim immigrant (4 times good in PC) faces public shaming for lies and deceit.

Why choose sides? It would be best to delay this case in public exposure for as long as possible. It's impossible for both sides to lose, but by all means let them both lose as much as possible for as long as possible. Right now, the girl is on the losing side and the case is flipping; new PR energy on the girl's side is thus very important. The guys Steve quotes are doing God's work.

If rivaling factions of PC commissars battle, do not come between. Just let them play it all out in front of the world's eyes.

But I can say from experience that for every undeserving claimant who receives asylum, several deserving ones are turned down.

I think the professor is inadvertently saying the same thing Steve said a few days ago: our asylum system is set up to reward conniving con-artists.

My problem with liberals is that, to them, the whole point of our immigration system is to benefit the non-white immigrant, not to benefit the United States, god forbid. The more unfit the immigrants, the more reliant they are on social services, the better, as the point is that THEY must benefit as much as possible. The ideal immigrant is an HIV-positive illiterate African Muslim who is pregnant with quintuplets, as she will cost the host country millions. (Such a woman just immigrated to the UK, but I'm not sure she had the HIV frosting on the cake.)

McGovern is the Director of Graduate Studies of African Studies. His teaching focuses on politics, expressive culture, youth and rebellion. In addition to the courses listed below, in 2010 he will be teaching or co-teaching ANTH 500a "Seminar in Sociocultural Anthropology: Historicizing the Discipline, Theorizing its History" and ANTH 541a "Agrarian Societies: Culture, Power, History and Development." He currently supervises PhD students working on a variety of topics in West and East Africa.

"But I can say from experience that for every undeserving claimant who receives asylum, several deserving ones are turned down."

Wrong. None of them *deserves* anything from us.

"But given the poverty and systemic violence in their country, they understand the circumstances in which such deception could occur — and we should, too."

Yes, we should understand the circumstances: third world people create third world societies. The violence and poverty of Guinea are not, to borrow an observation from Dennis Dale, geographical features of the land itself. They are a product of the people, and will follow the people wherever they go.

One of the many, many things that annoyed me about this article was McGovern brought in Amadou Diallo without ever thinking to mention that Diallo also gained refugee status by lying about his past in front of a judge.

Hollywood has to see the comedy potential in this scenario: a white guy cross dresses and pretends to be a West African woman immigrant to obtain a job at a swanky hotel in Manhattan (Think of an early 21st century Tootsie!) He finds himself pursued by a very amorous & suave European Union politician (is Banderas available?) and has to fend off his attentions while pursuing his undercover work for the DEA in the attempt to bust a drug network operating through 5 star hotels! If only Billy Wilder were still alive.

NOTA has got to be the winner. Deport them both. We do not need anyone stupid enough to come here and commit sex crimes with a (probably) AIDS infected prostitute. Much less a (probably) AIDS infected prostitute.

Did he not recognize that she was from Africa as opposed to African-American? You know the continent exporting AIDS, massive fraud, and criminal gangs, apparently more things Americans just won't do.

What's going on here? Ostensibly educated people writing stupid things. In the next story above we have a look at the stupidity of the various jury pools, mostly drawn from a more plebeian strata.Is there something going on that's leading to the stupefying of the American brain, or has it always been like this?

Again, the point is feeling, emotions, stuff aimed at ... Women. A male-oriented argument would run along the lines of "sure DSK hit over .300 in the French league, but look at how his chemistry disrupts the team, the IMF has been 7-19 with bailouts in scoring position." Or something.

Diversity is aimed directly at women's compassion. A strength that like all other strengths, if over done is a weakness.

"In 2002, the IMF suspended Guinea's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) because the government failed to meet key performance criteria. In reviews of the PRGF, the World Bank noted that Guinea had met its spending goals in targeted social priority sectors. However, spending in other areas, primarily defense, contributed to a significant fiscal deficit. The loss of IMF funds forced the government to finance its debts through Central Bank advances. The pursuit of unsound economic policies has resulted in imbalances that are proving hard to correct.

"Under then-Prime Minister Diallo, the government began a rigorous reform agenda in December 2004 designed to return Guinea to a PRGF with the IMF."

To keep him from getting stopped by the cops, they made him wear a business suit every day.

And this is supposed to be a bad thing?

My problem with liberals is that, to them, the whole point of our immigration system is to benefit the non-white immigrant, not to benefit the United States, god forbid. The more unfit the immigrants, the more reliant they are on social services, the better, as the point is that THEY must benefit as much as possible.

To a liberal, "the whole point of our immigration system is to" DESTROY the United States.

fudged her tax returns, had ties to people with criminal backgrounds, had unexplained deposits in her bank account and changed the account of the encounter she gave investigators. Yet those who would rush to judge her should consider the context.

Yes, let's consider: a white male citizen could easily be facing prison time, given all of the above. It's ALL about context!

I bet there are no Mexican migrants or Vietnamese where Bruce Springsteen lives. He probably lives in a huge mansion in a beautiful neighbourhood, in a gated community far from the great unwashed. Like all rich people he probably enjoys a highly protected environment. It costs him nothing personally to support these people and probably makes him feel good about himself.

It is good that blogs like this can help look at those who are pointing us to look at something else. In this matter, the routine conduct of police and the routine relationship between detectives and prosecutors might be due somefocus. Thorough work by the NYC detectives (and their seeking information from federal law enforcement? ) would have indicated the fragility of a prosecution case. The legal system offers plea bargains generously, as it must to avoid clogging (greater than is already manifest )and as any cost/benefit accounting would demand. At root of it all is what sensible system of detection and prosecution is taxpayer tolerable. BTW, The woman's dishonesty in providing information to the police is likely an offense in and of itself. It is not clear why this case was not more thoroughly investigated. It seems that all that was sought was enough checklist facts to make the filing of charges something that was not unethical or so flimsy as to justify dismissal on its face . Instead the police invesigation ought to be hurdle number one that the State has to surmount. It is reliably estimated that it costs taxpayers $18 dollars a minute to keep a NYC detective on the job. As both is mistress and his wife would insist, only a sliver of that $18 ever gets into his honest pocket. It must cost..what? $30 a minute to keep prosecutors and their staff on the job. In this case, what? $350,000? of public money got thrown around into the wind?? Taxpayers got assaulted in this one, folks. Forget the MSM failure to find their way to the real story---Where's the damn ambulance?

The problem with anthropologists of the Boazian persuasion is capture. McGovern shows this when he talks about his Guinean contacts as if their opinions on this matter are at least salient. But Guinea is just another failed state; what the uncaptured would call a Hellhole. The trick of the captured anthropologist is to 'normalize' a such a place and its people.Gilbert P.

- That unaccountable, supranational organizations like the IMF have the right (indeed, the obligation) to meddle in the immigration policies of sovereign countries- That the US has an obligation to welcome people who have wrecked their own countries and need someplace to flee to- That it is always an "abuse of power" when a low-status woman sleeps with a high-status man, and not a natural feature of how sexual attraction works

Our Court system is supposed to be favorably distinct in that it seeks not to punish crime but to prove crime. If from an investigation, the odds of conviction seem low, then the fiscally responsible thing to do is to dismiss the whole thing or to narrow the charges to what stands a reasonable chance of passing the test of trial. Instead, The overtly "righteous" thing to do is to file charges if if it seems that a crime may have been committed. This amounts largely to being a full-employment program for lawyers in a nation standing apart from all other nations in the ratio of lawyers to general populace.

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